


nowhere left to aim (and no one left to blame)

by friendly_ficus



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, between episode twelve and episode thirteen, but the comfort is pretty minimal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25301725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendly_ficus/pseuds/friendly_ficus
Summary: "I hate you.”“Youfearme,” Saccharina corrects. “Trust me, I know the difference.”(Cave-ins, fevers, the inability to connect.)
Relationships: Saccharina Frostwhip & Ruby Rocks
Comments: 9
Kudos: 68





	nowhere left to aim (and no one left to blame)

What happens: it’s chaos, the villagers of Buzzybrook pressed close in the circle of stone and the monsters screaming outside, shaking the walls apart. Grissini orders someone to shoot Ruby, darting through the night with enough maps in her hands to understand the new cartography of the world. Caramelinda holds the spell as long as she can, power screaming through her.

_ Come and see me, silly,  _ a bright voice whispers in Ruby’s ear, and she trips at exactly the wrong moment, the smell of sugarplums in her nose.

Someone shouts, a minty-green hand coming to grip her forearm and haul her into the standing stones.

Her mother lets go of the spell as one of the monsters gets a clawed hand through the wall, jostling one of the stones at exactly the wrong angle. Everyone disappears and the two of them, her and Saccharina, are thrust into a howling darkness.

\---

“Of course she didn’t do it on purpose,” Saccharina says lightly, catching Ruby as she staggers towards the caved-in tunnell. “Your mother’s not stupid, you know. She wouldn’t send you  _ with  _ me.”

Wherever they are, it’s not where they were meant to go. There’s a cave, maybe sixty feet wide, and there’s a collapsed tunnel that seems like the only way out. When they landed, Saccharina’d snapped her fingers and called up a blaze that hadn’t revealed anyone lurking in the shadows.

“You don’t know anything about my mother,” Ruby gets out, jaw tight against the pain. She’s had worse. She’s had worse. “You don’t know anything.”

“I know about arrow wounds, and by the looks of it you’ve got a bad one.” Saccharina looks fierce in the light of the conjured bonfire, and her arm around Ruby’s shoulders is as much a snare as it is a support. “Come back to the fire. Let me see it.”

“Why? You don’t care about me.”

“One of us has to be practical—”

“I’m not  _ stupid—” _

“—and it clearly isn’t going to be you. I’m not dragging your dead weight out of here.” 

Ruby believes her, believes that if she dies down here she’ll rot to rags and nothing, that she won’t have a grave like Jet’s. Maybe that’s better, and nobody’ll cry. She knows Saccharina won’t.

Saccharina’s grip on her shifts, loosens as they near the tumble of boulders that have blocked them into the end of this tunnel. Ruby pulls away, reaching for the unfamiliar rocks—she’s used to the peppermint around Dulcington, not whatever the deep purple sugar is—something  _ snaps  _ when she touches them, a cloud of dust swirling in the air to form some kind of glyph.

Saccharina curses, looping her arm instead around Ruby’s waist and hauling her back. 

The wound in her side screams and there’s a flash of light, or her vision’s going white with agony. Maybe it’s both.

She hears Saccharina mutter a few words and there’s a clap of thunder before they  _ move,  _ but the pain’s too much and everything just, goes away.

\---

“This is going to be hard,” Saccharina’s saying, when she’s fought her way back to consciousness. “I have to make sure it’s not something left behind. Bite down.”

She puts a wad cloth of in Ruby’s mouth; part of her cape, maybe? Everything’s blurry, tilting at the edges. It hurts even to think, the fire in her torso somehow spreading up into her chest, her throat, her head. It’s hot, everything’s hot and cold and strange; pain’s become more familiar since leaving for the tourney, but this is a kind she’s never experienced.

The bonfire casts their shadows dark against the wall; between one blink and the next, Ruby sees a long braid swinging.

_ The right thing,  _ she thinks she hears Jet saying.

Saccharina moves her hand with an awful  _ squelch,  _ and Ruby screams.

\---

When she wakes up again, the bonfire’s burning with a low blue flame. Saccharina has the maps spread out in front of her, a few feet away. Her cape is gone—Ruby shifts, realizes there’s something cushioning her head.

_ Found it,  _ she thinks, and Saccharina looks up sharply.

“My cape?” she asks, coming to Ruby’s side. “Yes, it’s there.”

“What,” Ruby starts, but the words slip away strangely. Like the boat on the river, Jet’s body in Pops’ arms. The bonfire is so pretty that she watches it for a while, mesmerized by the flames. Her head feels heavy and her heart’s beating a steady, slow pound in her ears. Everything hurts, but it feels far away.

“—isn’t working,” Saccharina says, and then, “Ruby.  _ Ruby.” _

“M’listening,” she manages, turning her eyes back to the queen.

“You’re sick, and my magic isn’t working on it—I can’t heal you. Do you understand? It’s not working.” She sounds worried, and it’s enough for Ruby to blink away a little of the blurriness of the room.

_ It’s not working, or you’re letting me die,  _ she thinks, and this time the thought stays behind her teeth.

“Well,” she croaks, clearing her throat. “You better get moving; you’re not dragging my dead weight out of here.” With more effort than it should take, she turns her head to watch the fire again. It shifts, dances against the stone floor without a sound.

Between her pulse and the wisps of flame and whatever Saccharina’s saying, Ruby hears her sister’s voice. 

_ That I love her, _ Jet whispers, but the rest of her words are too quiet to understand.

The world slips away again.

\---

The next time she wakes, her pillow is gone. She grunts at the pressure against her abdomen, eyes fluttering open to see Saccharina tightening the makeshift bandages. The caramel fabric looked nicer before it had Ruby’s blood all over it.

“You’re not going to die,” she says. She commands. 

Ruby hurts everywhere. Saccharina brings up another scrap of her cloak, whispers something that puts a flurry of snow over it and holds it up to the bonfire until it melts. She wipes at Ruby’s forehead, and she hates the cool relief it brings.

“I hate you.”

“You  _ fear  _ me,” Saccharina corrects. “Trust me, I know the difference.”

“Why should I trust you?” Ruby demands, insofar as she  _ can  _ demand, and leans away. By the  _ Bulb,  _ but it’s hot. She immediately misses the cool rag. She doesn’t lean back towards it. She doesn’t. She just, just sways a little. Lists against the hard ground.

Saccharina sets the damp cloth aside and grips her chin, makes her look her in the eye. 

“Your parents will lie to you. No, don’t interrupt, let me say it. Your parents will lie to you. People like Sir Theo will lie to you. They’ll do it to keep you safe, or keep you comfortable.” Her eyes are blazing, glowing with conviction in the firelight. “I don’t need you to be safe or comfortable.  _ I don’t need to lie to you.” _

_ Tell Ruby,  _ Jet says somewhere, but she can’t make out the rest of it. 

“Here’s the truth,” Saccharina sighs, reaching for the rag again and wiping Ruby’s sweaty forehead. “You’re my subject, so I want you to live. As long as you’re alive, there’s the possibility of something good coming from it.” 

A cool wind accompanies her words, easing Ruby’s next breath.

“I’m sorry,” she says to Jet, sorry that she can’t understand her, that she can feel herself drifting off again.

Saccharina smiles, something broken behind it. “Forgiven.”

**Author's Note:**

> and eventually they get out of the cave or something, i don’t know where it goes. i do maintain that if the two of them had the time they could be, not friends, but not fully enemies. i just want these characters to talk to each other, i love them :(  
> i’m trying to figure out what a happy ending looks like for ruby and saccharina, but so far i’ve got this; saccharina’s trying to take care of ruby because she’s a subject and saccharina doesn’t want to be the kind of queen who just lets her subjects die—ruby’s caught up in grief and pain and a fever, and she’s being quasi-haunted by jet’s last words. she's afraid of what saccharina represents (the reality that jet is gone, that things she thought were base facts of the world were actually untrue, etc.) given a few years, this can become a relationship where nobody hates each other. i manifest it.  
> title for this fic is a line from the song Wax & Wane by Alana Henderson  
> leave a comment and let me know what you think!


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